Not sure where to post this, but BoTD didn’t change like it usually should…

It’s fixed already

@topic
There is one game which I forgot the name that was shutdown, but the game page still exists and the badges are still there. Why don’t this kind of badges get deleted from database, like it was done with Caesary?
If the game doesn’t work anymore, delete its page along with the badges.
If the game still works but badges can’t be obtained by some reason, at least delete the badges.

An admin should mail Kingdom Rush’s developer, he doesn’t answer any msg asking him to fix his game. Dunno if he was mailed already.

Maritos, the game you’re trying to think of is called ‘Backyard Monsters’.

Exactly, good catch.
Other games like Caesary and Zening no longer exist in the database, so the badges don’t appear on the badge list or in Badge Master. But since this game was removed and the page wasn’t deleted, the badges still exist but are no longer obtainable. It would be great if the badges could be deleted.

I believe I should mention that Desktop TD Pro badges are working again. I just got Spawning Grounds Massacre Badge an hour ago, and didnt need to report. I alreadly had other badges, but yet I got a curious message in the Award tab:

It seems the medium badge of The Necronomicon is broken in some computers including mine. The API for “highest arcane”, “highest elder”, etc work, but “best attack” doesn’t.http://i.imgur.com/ns8QB5W.jpg

Yeah, and i had the same issue on mobile version on bluestacks a month ago. It just says “uneine” on that place.http://i.imgur.com/6JC2J7g.jpg
Still though, i just checked a PC version and API is working fine for me.

It’s okay, all i wanted to point out is that it isn’t likely to be fixed anytime soon, the glitch exists for a rather long time already. Also, if you want OP to add it, maybe you better PM him about this.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to chime in on this thread. Broken badges are definitely at the forefront of my attention right now, even if there hasn’t been a ton of direct communication with the community.

The underlying problem here is that some Flash games just don’t age very gracefully. As the Flash player and web browsers continually get updated, old games don’t. Some of them start breaking in unexpected ways. Usually this happens a few years after the game has been released, after the developer has moved on to different projects. Sometimes they don’t even have access to the code anymore. And even if they do, fixing the problem is not always a viable expenditure of time.

This problem is more common in some games than others. DTD 1.5 and Civiballs break regularly. In the Kongregate admin panel we have a “restore badged version” button that will update the game to the last version in which all the badges were working. We make use of this feature when developers update their game in such a way that breaks badges. However, this feature doesn’t always work — I attempted to use it on Civiballs 2 earlier this week, and it broke the game page entirely. If badges start breaking because of an update outside of the game itself, then this feature won’t work.

I regularly contact developers about fixing old broken games and old broken badges, but honestly it’s usually very difficult to get an enthusiastic response to such a request. And the problem only gets worse as time goes on.

Later today I will be removing Civiballs 2 from the physics quest. We will likely remove the game from the site entirely as well, simply because it does not work at all. It’s just a white screen, and it’s unlikely that this problem will ever be fixed long-term. It’s not the first time this game has broken.

We really do need to clean this up. I sympathize with people who are running into broken badges on the site. I spend a LOT of time ensuring that every badge works perfectly before it’s launched. I also ensure that back progress is submitted as often as possible — it’s a major goal of mine within the whole system that if you have already completed a task before a badge was added, then you should not have to put in extra work to be awarded the badge. So believe me when I say that I’m not exactly happy when badges break entirely and I’m powerless to fix them.

Long-term, we will likely transition into a system of retiring old badges, much like the Feat of Strength system in World of Warcraft. These badges will still be on the profiles of everyone who earned them, but they will not link to the game page, and they will not be earnable going forward. I believe much of this functionality is already built into the current system, but I’m unsure of what will happen if a game with badges is removed from the site entirely, which is likely the route we’ll have to take with games like Civiballs and DTD.

I would again like to thank everyone who contributed to this thread and brought this issue to our greater attention.

Long-term, we will likely transition into a system of retiring old badges, much like the Feat of Strength system in World of Warcraft. These badges will still be on the profiles of everyone who earned them, but they will not link to the game page, and they will not be earnable going forward. I believe much of this functionality is already built into the current system, but I’m unsure of what will happen if a game with badges is removed from the site entirely, which is likely the route we’ll have to take with games like Civiballs and DTD.

Are you talking about all badges retiring at some point, or only the ones, who become unearnable?
I don’t think you should ever retire badges that are working. A big part of the fun playing at kongregate for me (and probably many others) are trying to get all badges, or at least as many as possible. Retiring old badges just because their old would be a huge disadvantage for newer players. It would also remove the fun with quests, especially best of the year quests, if old badge are getting retired.

I don’t think you should ever remove a badge, that is in any legit way possible to get.
This would also count for Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 and Sola Rola – The Gravity Maze – The games themselves are broken, but there is a workaround to get them to work for players, who really wants to get the badges. It would be ok to do, so these badges doesn’t show up as easily, but disallowing to use the workaround to earn the badges would just not be good.

Are you talking about all badges retiring at some point, or only the ones, who become unearnable?
I don’t think you should ever retire badges that are working.

Yes, we’re on the same page. I am only talking about removing badges that are unearnable and likely to stay that way. If we remove a badge and the developer later fixes the game, I would be more than happy to add the badge back in.

Are you talking about all badges retiring at some point, or only the ones, who become unearnable?
I don’t think you should ever retire badges that are working.

Yes, we’re on the same page. I am only talking about removing badges that are unearnable and likely to stay that way. If we remove a badge and the developer later fixes the game, I would be more than happy to add the badge back in.

Can you please, please let us know the games that get removed? During the last round of cleaning there weren’t any ‘official announcements’ and we, the community, relied on each other to find out when a game was gone. Just posting a simple message here would suffice. It’s easier for everyone that way, I think.

Would it be possible to have a page of the removed games and their badges? It’d be like a ‘In Memoriam’ of the past badges that are no longer available. You could type a bit about why the game and badges were removed, if you wanted. A neat and interesting idea so that all the removed games aren’t forgotten, because they’re listed together for one to see.

Just to be clear, I am ONLY talking about removing badges, and ONLY if they are broken, and ONLY from the game page and badge searching tool (not people’s profiles). In the case of Civiballs, I am only talking about removing a game that is already completely non-functional (just a white screen).

Kongregate is never the one to make the decision in favor of removing a game from the site (unless it violates our terms), but we must honor the request of developers who ask us to take their game down. And if they’re hosting the game with their own servers, then they don’t even need to go through us at all to turn it off.

The medium badge of Monster’s Den is not working for me. It can’t be verified easily because there isn’t “Corruptor defeated (Beginner mode)” score in the leaderboard. The other APIs work though.http://i.imgur.com/ov3ABzB.png

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